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Australian DJ tests swooping magpie deterrents

Amber Wheatland, one half of Amber & Billo, discovers that apparently the eyes don't work.


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Man took cruise using credit cards in name of blind friend he'd met at Alcoholics Anonymous

A Florida man is facing criminal charges after an investigation revealed he’d financially taken advantage of a blind man he met at Alcoholics Anonymous, police said. Larry Tuttle, 59, of South Daytona, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with fraudulent use of personal identification information amounting to $5,000 or more, fraudulent use of a credit card more than $100 and grand theft, records show. Tuttle spent nearly $10,000, which included a cruise to Mexico, at the expense of Jason Derrico from Holly Hill, by opening three credit cards in Derrico’s name, police said.

Police were alerted to the possible fraud in July, and when they met with Tuttle on Aug. 25 he claimed he’d been given permission to apply for the three credit cards in Derrico’s name, according to the affidavit. The two men met at an AA meeting in 2013 and Tuttle, who claimed he’d been sober 30 years, told Derrico, 36, he wanted to be his sponsor, according to a charging affidavit. Derrico said he initially enjoyed Tuttle’s company, but he began to grow uncomfortable when Tuttle wanted Derrico to pull away from his blindness support group and made inquiries about Derrico’s finances, according to the affidavit.



Derrico told police Tuttle would sometimes yell at him if he did not disclose certain information. About a year ago, Tuttle told Derrico his trailer had burned down, so Derrico allowed Tuttle to stay the night, during which Tuttle went through Derrico’s financial paperwork and said he could take better care of those matters, according to the affidavit. Derrico told police the two of them would make trips around the county, and once to Fort Lauderdale, where Tuttle would buy gas and make other purchases with what Derrico thought was Tuttle’s own money.

Derrico said he did remember Tuttle asking him to make several purchases, which made Derrico feel like he was being taken advantage of, so he cut contact with Tuttle in January, according to the affidavit. In July, Derrico began getting calls from a financial institution about owing money on a credit card that listed Tuttle as an authorized user. Derrico closed the accounts, which Tuttle tried to reopen, according to the affidavit. Police said Tuttle made some payments on the accounts to keep them open as long as possible. Tuttle is being held at the Volusia County Branch Jail on $22,500 bail.

Wily fox outwitted firefighters

A cunning fox gave firefighters and locals the slip, after sending them on a wild-goose-chase in Valparaiso, Chile, last Friday.



The firefighters were called after several reports of a fox trapped inside a building. But the fox managed to out-run and out-smart the firefighters.

Just before the fox escaped, it snapped and almost bit a firefighter trying to grab it. One local resident says they could not get close to the animal.


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Local Police Captain Ingeborg Villa blamed the firefighters' lack of planning for the animal's escape. The fox managed to get away by jumping off a balcony and running away.

Headmistress arrested after five-year-old boy put in dog kennel by teacher for talking in class

Police in Trivandrum, Kerala, south India, on Monday arrested the headmistress of a private English school following a complaint that a five-year-old boy had been locked up in a dog kennel for talking to friends. The dog was taken out of the pen, while the youngster was kept inside. The alleged incident occurred at Jawahar English Medium School on the outskirts of the city last Thursday. However, a complaint was filed on Monday.



Police arrested school headmistress Sashikala of the school, which has been functioning in a shed within a premises of a house. The student’s class teacher Deepika, who locked up him in the kennel, has absconded. However, school manager Raveendran Pillai said the case was fabricated and no such incident occurred. Certain vested groups were behind the complaint. The boy was tutored to raise charges against the school, said Pillai.

Police said the headmistress was charged under IPC sections 317 (exposure and abandoning of a child by a person having care of it), 342 (wrongful confinement) and Juvenile Justice (care and protection of child) Act. The victim’s parent Jomon said his son was locked up in the dog kennel from morning to evening. His elder daughter, studying in an upper primary class at the same school, saw the boy languishing in the dog house when she went to use the lavatory.



When the girl took up the matter with the headmistress, she, according to the complainant, was threatened that a stick would be screwed down in her mouth if she informed the family about the incident. The family said the child was not given noon meal. The siblings, however, attended the school on Friday. The incident came to light after the girl student took up the matter with her relative, who, in turn, advised the parents to file a police complaint. The education and the social welfare departments have launched separate probes.

Police chased runaway horses pulling carriage

Speeding police with sirens blaring and blue lights flashing chased after a pair of runaway horses pulling a carriage in Bielsko-Biala, southern Poland. The police car chased the horse and carriage as it dashed off down the road almost hitting oncoming traffic.



The animals ran into the opposing lane and at one point smashed through a police barricade hitting a police van that tried to stop them at a roundabout. The horses ran off when a car backfired after the owner had left them beside the road to get some cigarettes. They then ran unchecked along the streets, several times almost causing a serious accident.



A police spokesman said: "We received calls saying that a pair of horses were causing havoc on the roads. We dispatched a patrol car and a police van to deal with them, but it soon became apparent that stopping them was easier said than done." Officers eventually managed to bring the pair to a halt after they ran into a park to avoid yet another roadblock, and started grazing when they felt the grass underfoot.


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"One of our officers was able to take control of the reigns," the spokesman added. Now the regional police HQ is offering a prize to anyone who can come up with a way to tackle the problem in future as a way of making light of the chase. In a statement they said: "We will give a prize to the best suggestion for punishment for such horse joyriders who have clearly broken the law, and also for a way to stop them in future that doesn't involve damage to police vehicles."

Woman drove car over raised bridge

A woman in Croatia startled onlookers by leaping several metres across a raised bridge in her car, apparently after missing a red light.



The movable part of the bridge in the seaside town of Tisno was raised at 2.5m (8ft) when the yellow Peugeot zipped up it and landed on the other side. The unnamed woman, 58, passed a red light that had just come on, according to bridge warden Tome Mejic Sidic.



"I was shouting and gesturing her to stop but it was no use", he says. "She ignored me, went full throttle and flew across the bridge. I was convinced she'd overturn the car." Another witness estimates the woman's speed at about 80km/h (50mph). "It sounded like a bomb had gone off," he says of the landing.


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"There was a terrible noise and all the airbags were opened by the force of the crash." The driver and her passenger came to a halt next to a cafe on the other side, unharmed. The woman reportedly later told police that she'd been blinded by the sun and hadn't seen the red light.

Former ship's captain spanked wife's bottom with deck shoe

A 73-year-old former ship's captain repeatedly slapped his wife on the buttock with a deck shoe. Michael Forwood has been ordered to do unpaid work after pleading guilty to assaulting his wife by beating. Forwood, of Gunnislake, east Cornwall, who has no previous convictions, appeared before Bodmin Magistrates Court. Alison May, for the prosecution, said the couple had been together for 20 years but did not marry until February 2011. Since then there had been difficulties in the relationship. After being away sailing since the end of June, Forwood came home on August 22.

At 8am on August 26, Mrs Forwood, who was wearing a towel following her shower, went into the couple's former shared bedroom, where he was in bed. "Forwood jumped out of the bed and hit her with the shoe on her buttock," said Mrs May. She ended up on the floor lying on her side and when she tried to pull herself up he hit her again with the shoe 10 or 12 times, leaving her shocked and with soreness and reddening. He told her: "It's all your fault; you're causing me sleepless nights." In a victim personal statement referred to in court, Mrs Forwood described her husband as an "emotional bully" and said she felt like she was constantly walking on eggshells.



She also stated that there had been a previous unreported incident involving her husband. When Forwood was interviewed by police he said there had been a breakdown in the relationship and claimed that his wife had been abusive to him and was trying to evict him from his home. He told officers, "I lost my rag", but said he had not hit her hard and had only wanted to shock her. He was horrified by what he had done as a result of a build-up of frustration. Chris Andrews, for the defence, said that Forwood had been a ship's captain for over 20 years, including on ferries, and had been involved in sail training with youths and disabled people.

"The loss of his good character is very embarrassing for him," said Mr Andrews. Forwood had never been in trouble before and disputed that there had been any previous incident of violence against his wife. He was sorry for his actions. After considering a probation officer's pre-sentence report, in which it was said that Forwood presented a low risk of reoffending, the magistrates imposed a 12-month community order on him with 50 hours of unpaid work. He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £60 victim surcharge. Forwood was also handed an 18-month restraining order not to behave in a way which would cause Mrs Forwood harassment, alarm or distress.

Men face prison sentence despite being cleared of sexually assaulting man with hard-boiled eggs

Two men accused of carrying out a series of degrading acts on an unconscious, dying man have been told they face prison sentences. Nathan Smith and Daniel Yeates were found not guilty of sexually assaulting Phillip Coombs with hard-boiled eggs by a jury at Bristol Crown Court on Tuesday. But the half-brothers were convicted of causing Mr Coombs actual bodily harm during the incident at a flat in Patchway, south Gloucestershire, last year.

The court heard medics battled for an hour to save 47-year-old Mr Coombs after being told he had taken a drugs overdose. They noted his hair had been shaved, one of his eyebrows was missing and an obscene word was written on his head in red marker pen. During a post-mortem examination a pathologist found two hard-boiled eggs inside Mr Coombs' rectum. The cause of his death could not be proved. Smith, 35, of Mid-Glamorgan, and 29-year-old Yeates, of Patchway, were bailed until a sentencing hearing later this month – but were warned they face being locked up.



Trial Judge Michael Roach told them: "This is likely to be a prison sentence; by that I mean an effective prison sentence." Smith had changed his plea to guilty on the ABH charge during the trial. Yeates was found guilty of the same charged but both were cleared of sexual assault by penetration. During the trial the court heard that Mr Coombs was found to have had his head, left eyebrow and pubic hair shaved and his right buttock cut at Yeates's flat during a night in January last year. He had been unconscious for four or five hours before Yeates called an ambulance, when he stopped breathing.

The jury was told Mr Coombs was an alcoholic. The jury heard from one witness who reported seeing Mr Coombs lying on the floor, shaking, in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable position. But he was not being helped by Smith or Yeates – instead Smith was shaving his head with a disposable razor. The same witness also recalled seeing Yeates boiling eggs in the kitchen. Daniel Yeates told police he had given Mr Coombs a psychedelic drug called DOC, which he got from the internet. Both accused men said they had all been drinking and messing about and denied any knowledge of how the eggs came to be inside Mr Coombs.

Elephant, zebra and giraffes face eviction from shop roof

Two giraffes, an elephant and zebra have appeared on a shop roof to the delight of children, but not of the local council. Reigate and Banstead Council has told new South African food store St Marcus, in Lower Kingswood, Surrey, that it needs to apply for planning permission or remove the near-life-sized model animals.

Kelvin Hinton, development quality manager at the council, said: "The sitting of the animals on the roof at the property was drawn to our attention. "We have advised the owners that due to their scale they will require planning permission. "If a planning application is received we will decide on any action required once the application is considered and determined.



"If no application is made we would expect them to be removed without delay." St Marcus opened a few months ago and is billed as a "one-stop shop for everything from South Africa". As well as South African cured meat, called biltong, the store sells exotic meats including ostrich, crocodile and antelope.

Owner Emory St Marcus described the public and shoppers’ reaction to the animals as "excellent", adding: "They love it, especially the children." Resident Judy Parfitt said the appearance of the animals a few weeks ago had caused quite a stir in the village. Ms Parfitt said: "Some are a bit horrified, some are amazed, some are intrigued. Others think it looks quite amusing."